1. Technical Field
The present invention relates to a method, an apparatus, and a program for determining a position of a lower jaw. In particular, the present invention relates to a method, an apparatus, and a program for determining a position of a lower jaw, by which a normal position of a lower jaw of an examinee can be determined.
2. Related Art
There has already been an analysis apparatus for obtaining a contact pressure distribution of a jaw joint in a particular lower jaw position (refer to Japanese Patent Application Publication No. H9-322883 for example). This analysis apparatus obtains a contact pressure distribution of a jaw joint by reading an X-ray photograph of the jaw joint, and using the lower jawbone and the skull in the read jaw joint as a rigid body model thereby computationally adding an imaginary binding strength to exclude any contradicting force.
However, the mentioned analysis apparatus, although capable of obtaining a contact pressure distribution of a jaw joint in a certain lower jaw position, it is not possible to know whether the lower jaw position is a normal lower jaw position for the examinee. Moreover, it is burdensome to take in the X-ray photograph of the jaw joint or to repeat a calculation loop by setting a virtual binding strength until the calculation converges.